Sleep, O My Precious One
by Urchin of the Riding Stars
Summary: Francis makes an excruciating decision out of love.


~o*oOo*o~

**Hey folks. Hope you're doing well…and that you don't mind me writing yet more angsty stuff. I am capable of happy-funny-go-fluffy time, but I'm currently being held against my will by emo plot bunnies (wearing sunglasses) that are pressing guns to my head and making me type. As I still have some use for my noggin, I will oblige them.**

**In case you're wondering who Alice is, it's Belgium. As far as I know, she doesn't have an official name. **

**Obviously don't own Hetalia, much love always.**

~o*oOo*o~

* * *

Somewhere, an elevator is chiming a mechanical _ding_, titanium doors stiffly sliding open and shut. Frequently you can hear the muffled noise of footsteps against carpet. People are murmuring quietly, talking into cell phones or to staff members or to each other, or flicking through water-stained magazine pages as they wait for their turn to see a physician. Wheelchair wheels click and creak when the carpeting cuts off to tiled floors, and intercoms crackle as calm and cool voices state announcements, or ask certain people to come forward to desks. Occasionally there's the beep of a pager or a phone, mothers reassure squeamish children sitting next to them in the pediatric ward, and some corny soap opera is being replayed near the pharmacy on an old television screen, which bored people watch with muted interest.

Life is moving by here much as it does anywhere in the world, even if this is the place people come to die.

But this is also the place most of us come to be born in.

And so, in this cold, sterilized place full of squeaky nurses' shoes and gleaming floors and plaques with portraits of smiling physicians long-since dead, life begins and continues despite the circumstances. People hustle and bustle about their business whether or not the old man in room 2105 has been wheeled out with a sheet over his pale body to the morgue, or if the woman with the red flower on her hat sitting in the lounge was too late to say goodbye. It continues when a little girl cries after getting a painful booster shot, and when a shaken patron there for her annual checkup leaves with dreadful news.

Unfortunately or fortunately, just like anywhere else, time continues in the hospital even when we feel it does not, _should_ not—that the rest of the world should come to a halt because there's a rippling distortion that causes ongoing reality to waver, slow to a pause, seconds or minutes or hours becoming one everlasting, nearly-tangible taxi cab trip outside the universe, where time and emotion have no meaning, no concept.

Blankness.

A reprieve of nothing, mere stalling.

Outside the maternity ward, Francis Bonnefoy is sitting there, in Blankness, with the passing second and without. Stillness. He hears sounds but doesn't listen, can't process, because there's only Blankness and he is clinging to the fading specter even though he doesn't want to anymore—_can't_ anymore.

Because now there is definitely more than Nothing—even if Alice has already left without glancing back, her elder brother pushing her wheelchair out the electronic doors.

She left Francis with Something. _Someone_.

Blinking dumbly, Francis stares down at the bundle in his arms, wondering whether he ought to feel joy or wonder or horror. Considering that it doesn't really matter what his feelings are because the outcome will be the same regardless, he stays in Nothingness, or as much as he can cling to it.

The squirming little parcel in his hands had only ever been an _it_, a thing, the fetus. A nuisance, an _accident_ after one night's carelessness. A mistake that had beat him around the head for nine months, refusing to die, refusing to stop tormenting him. _One pause_, it reminded him, jabbing him with pitchforks everywhere it could, as if several little demons had climbed atop him his body. _All it would have taken was one pause to pull on a cock sock, and this misery might never have happened_.

He tentatively pulls up the furry little hood attached to the baby's nightshirt, one with little white polar bear ears sewn atop it. Pulls it back, revealing dark, wheat-colored fuzz plastered to the boy's scalp. He pulls the hood back on again.

And now, after nine months of trepidation and a long, difficult labor, _it_ has culminated to a _he_. A little baby boy nestled in his arm, such a very tiny human contraption made up of even tinier components. Really miraculous, if you stopped and thought about it—a brand new mind capable of learning any language, of becoming so many different things. A sense of consciousness in what had once only been cells. From Francis' flesh and blood had sprung forth a whole new person, a perfect, unmarked cherubim.

Thawing, Francis blinks, his normally cheerful smirk waylaid to somberness as he reverently presses a finger against the newborn's chest, feeling a warm, fluttering heartbeat answer him. He looks up at the dull florescent lights, at nearby cheesy posters with even cheesier slogans before glancing back at the bundle of blankets he holds.

It's alive. _He's alive_. Francis wonders if it's really sunk into him just yet, though the numbness is gone. He almost misses it; the disbelief had protected him as he'd watched wide-eyed as his ex-girlfriend gave birth, throwing back her red, gleaming brow and crying in pain. Thank heavens he hadn't been born a female, although he hadn't exactly brought grace to his sex by knocking Alice up to begin with.

Not that he wouldn't have made a very lovely woman.

Francis sighs, a long, shivery sound that seems to belong to a very old man. She'd cried, jabbered nonsensically, seized Francis by the scruff of his neck and threatened to castrate his beautiful body—and then, she'd fallen back against the pillows like a limp doll when a sharp wail pierced through the room, when at last the baby was lifted free, shining in fluid and whimpering and _real_.

So much unhappiness, so much uncertainty, resentment, and so much _agony_ over so small and stupid and wasteful a thing as a human being. Another enormous carbon footprint on the planet, another user of air. There were many of those, what was another more, another less?

So much pain and misery over so complex a creature, something so still and yet unbearably pure.

A knot of pain tightens in Francis' throat, and he buries his face in the baby's neck, fighting back tears. _I'm sorry. I'm sorry._ He can't say why he wants to apologize to the child so badly, but he does, and ardently wishes the boy could understand. Then again, it's probably a blessing that he can't.

Wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeve, Francis pulls back from the baby's warmth and simply _looks_.

He hadn't believed Alice when she'd come forward with the news that she was pregnant, hadn't wanted to. She even insisted that he come along for the paternity test, and the doctors verified that the growing lump of trouble was indeed HIS. His fault. His responsibility. Never mind that Alice insisted on keeping it, that Alice hadn't bothered to get protection of her own.

He leans back against the wall, accidentally scraping his back and not really noticing. In all likelihood, the creature had not asked to be born, yet he had hated this baby, imagined it grinning self-satisfied at him as it grew, mocking him. These were meant to be the best years of his life, time to prep for colleges of the arts, time to flirt with whomever he wanted. Instead, he'd been shackled to a growing tumor and an increasingly-resentful girlfriend.

Her parents had ardently blamed him for the pregnancy and her elder brother made good on his threat to fracture a rib. In addition, he knocked out a tooth and nearly broke his nose (he made up for the "nearly" part by kicking Francis repeatedly with steel-toed shoes).

Alice not being especially religious or an avid pro-life advocate, he'd expected her to simply have the problem fixed but to his surprise she insisted on carrying the thing to labor, even as people pointed at her growing belly and whispered in the halls at school. He supposed it was the chivalrous, romantic thing to do to stand by her, try to make certain she was comfortable and to help her in any way he could, but the two knew they as a couple were over before the end of the first trimester.

They'd had unprotected sex all those weeks ago in an attempt to solidify and rescue a relationship that had never been, but perhaps with or without the pregnancy the hoax wouldn't have gone on much longer. They hadn't hated each other, were reasonable company and fucks—and that was it. Nothing more. Alice had handed the baby over to her whimpering ex before almost immediately taking her leave, tears streaming down her face. She'd wanted to be cut free just as soon as Francis had sliced through the umbilical cord.

Needing to distract himself, he looks down at the boy again. Thankfully, the babe has inherited Francis' lovely hair, so at least he has that going for him—and contrary to all expectations, he doesn't have Francis' dreamy blue eyes or his mother's spring pea ones. When Francis saw the eyes open just a few hours ago, they were a sparkling, rich and sleepy purple.

He feels the baby squirm in his arms and hastily adjusts to make him more comfortable. It's the least he can do—in less than an hour now, his son will be someone else's child. He'll be here soon.

Francis met the man and liked him, felt sorry for him, and not simply because the shabby-looking man probably bought all his clothes at Sears. Alice had found his adoptive profile online, and while he felt he would have settled for any family at that point—including a pack of wild boars—he sort of liked the novelty of handing the baby over to a single parent. Who would choose one of them when there were plenty of eligible couples in wholesome, white-picket fence homes? He'd been raised by his mother and turned out perfectly, the obvious "accident" aside, of course. It was the kind and novel thing to do, to even consider him. He imagined Arthur Kirkland would be kneeling at his feet and feverishly kissing his hand when Alice dragged him over to inspect the house.

But he'd been surprised; even a little unnerved. Arthur Kirkland had been very quiet, all nervous smiles and awkward coughs during their brief visit. He was a policeman who never made time for a personal life of his own, and this had come apparent to him only sometime his thirtieth year. With the help of a friend, he'd connected with an agency and filed a request for a child, actually getting two out of the deal. Francis learned that a homeless, pregnant teenager had approached Arthur around the same time he and Alice did, desperate. She said that the absolutely last thing she wanted was for her child to wind up like her, wanted it to grow up in a home with a strong authority figure. Arthur had agreed, and that was the last he'd heard on the matter.

The income Arthur brought in was sufficient, Francis supposed, though he would have liked to find a millionaire to adopt the boy (and perhaps him as well). The large old house the man had was "quaint" (In Alice's words; Francis thought it was merely gloomy and in desperate need of an interior decorator), and their child would be getting a sibling out of the deal.

And yet, Francis believed there never was a man less suitable for raising a child. Arthur had tried baking scones for his visitors (only they were blackened lumps of coal plastered to the pan), and short stature and impeccable manners aside, he lacked grace or the natural approachable-ness that once had made Francis the most popular boy in school, before one night set a wall around him and Alice and everyone avoided them like the plague. Arthur reeked of…well, there was no better word for it: _boredom_, of fussiness and stiffness and propriety and the _no, son, you're not allowed to run around naked_ sort of nonsense. He did not at all seem like a cozy sort of person you'd hug easily, or expect an embrace in turn from, and his eyes...too sharp. Too piercing. Too difficult to look at when they were boring into your own.

But even if Arthur looked slightly scary when he tried to do baby-talk (who the hell did _baby talk_ in such an unholy and satanic manner?), was gruff and couldn't cook and would likely be a stern parent, Francis had chosen him. Why not? Because Arthur was unmistakably and pathetically lonely, the baby had never been _his _concern to begin with, and Francis wanted a man who would likely drill _some_ lessons into his children's heads before they learned them the hard way. It was the very least he could do.

He crosses one of his legs, cooing softly when gas makes the corners of the baby's mouth twitch into a smile. What a little angel.

The baby is so warm in his arms. Wiggles in his blankets and lets out a little burp. He traces the baby's slight pink lips very carefully with a forefinger.

How is it, after only seventeen years of life, he's able to help manufacture another human being? It doesn't seem right somehow, makes him feel incredibly uneasy and sheepish and _scared _all at once.

Still the baby sleeps on, oblivious to the strange new world around him, seemingly at peace. Francis wonders if it—he—thinks of anything at all, if it misses the warm darkness of its mother's womb, if it knows Francis is his father. He'd read somewhere that babies can smell their mothers and instinctively snuggle close to them just seconds after being born. It's hard to tell whether the baby is snuggling to him or not, though his ear is pressed over Arthur's heart from where his little face peeks out of the bunting, cheeks pudgy and rosy. He looks so comfortable that Francis can't bear to move him now, even if his arms are starting to ache from holding him up so long.

A nurse wheels an elderly lady out of a nearby room, who smiles at the scene as she moves past.

"What an adorable child," she coos. "Tell me, young man, is that your little brother?"

Francis' grip doubles over the bundle in his arms. He tries to smile and it comes out strange, deformed. He wonders how the baby can sleep listening to the jagged rhythm of his accelerating heartbeat, but thankfully he doesn't wake. Francis doesn't know what to do with a crying infant, and the thought frightens him more than just a little.

To watch the baby's pretty, pretty eyes open and consider the man who had by mistake created him and be scared or angry and start to cry is a terror Francis doesn't want, doesn't think he can stand even if he knows that his son means nothing by it.

_His son._

It sounds too bizarre to be true, and he doesn't want it to be, yet he _does, does, does_, because this sleeping little star in his arms is HIS, if only for a little under an hour.

The physicians passing him are giving him looks, some contemptuous, some registering pity. His breathing starts to elevate, and he stiffens as a white-hot panic begins raging through his bloodstream. Francis grits his teeth, his heart slamming adrenaline in him in waves, making him dizzy even as his next plan of action became perfectly lucid, crystal-clear:

Arthur's coming. And the only signal Francis' head is giving him now is to take his little one and to _get out_ while he still can. He's changed his mind. He can't and won't give up this baby, _his_ baby boy, to some pitiful, heartless stranger and what was likely a crack baby. Whatever Alice might have said about the adoptive procedure, it was beyond cruel to just pass his own flesh and blood away like Moses in the Nile.

Floodgates open, and the tears start to flood down his face as the beautiful, terrifying reality of it all hits him: Francis Bonnefoy is a father. The baby in his arms is his child. A precious, innocent new life for him to protect, to nourish.

Blue eyes cut with despair, Francis gazes at his son as the horrific happens; like the Grinch's heart expanding well beyond its natural size, he feels the traitorous, masochistic organ eagerly swallow the child whole, and the surge of _love_ and _adoration_ that rips through him is searing, knocks the breath out of him.

It makes the concept of anything other idea foreign, impossible.

The baby snuffles and kicks his little pajama-clad feet, a sliver of violet appearing as he opens his eyes and sleepily considers the young man silently crying over him. Upon finding nothing worth staying awake for, the baby closes his eyes again with another small sigh that sounds like a gurgle. Or a hiccup.

Francis screws his eyes shut and snickers humorlessly.

Stupid baby with sleepy, shining eyes that break his heart and make him silently and tremulously crush Matthieu to his breast. Yes, _Matthieu_, the baby's name is Matthieu, that had been the name he'd decided he wanted the baby to have even if he couldn't keep him. But he WOULD keep him, wouldn't be like the vast majority of teenage parents he'd seen on trashy reality shows. Francis clucks over the child, who's drooling on his shirt now.

He kisses Matthieu on his soft, soft forehead, wincing at just how _breakable_ the boy feels. One fall would be enough for his baby to be seriously hurt, perhaps crippled or brain-damaged, or—the grip tightens and Francis stands with the greatest care in the world, heads back to the nursery. He needs to call Antonio and tell him that there's been a _change in plans_, doesn't want to imagine his friend's face when he discovers that they'll need a car seat, a diaper bag, a bottle—dozens upon dozens of things just to get the baby safely home.

Wherever that might be. His heart sinks.

Mama never even knew that Francis impregnated a girl, that she was a grandmother at age forty. He shivers as he enters into the warm hospital room again, sinks down into a rocking chair and cradles the sleeping baby, his mind whirring like the propellers on a plane as he desperately tries to decide his next plan of action.

_He can make it happen_. Drop out of school, postpone his dreams and get a job someplace. The only question was who would look after Matthieu while he works. Francis bites the inside of his lip and nibbles it worriedly, his free hand wandering to sift through his hair, which is steadily becoming plastered to his scalp with sweat.

_Don't think about that now,_ his mind tries to assure him. _All you need is love._ And who better to love Matthieu but his own father?

_Mon dieu, I have two hundred dollars in my bank account,_ The sane corner of his mind argues weakly. _You've…you've never even had a baby brother or sister! You…you can't do this. _

Tortured, he kisses Matthew, a tear splashing on the baby's cheek. Scrunching up his face, Matthew pouts slightly, flailing and humming a bit before dozing off once again. Such a good-natured son. One that he can't possibly keep-

He breaks the skin on his lips, and they begin to bleed. _Non. Non. Non. Non. Non_. Wild-eyed, Francis rings for a nurse—surely she'll give him a staggering list of things he needs to purchase—and sinks into a nearby rocking chair, wondering if she'll also give him a lesson on how to change a diaper. It can't be that hard.

He won't give the baby up. He can't. The boy is his responsibility. His blessing. He has just become the world.

With fingers as cautious as if he's about to touch a butterfly wing, Francis touches the tiny ears on the boy's head. But he can look at Matthieu later, will have all the time in the world to marvel over him now. When he got his first paycheck would bring him books, fingerpaints, would go through storage and dig up every safe toy he might have kept from sepia-ingrained days. He'll cook when the baby's teeth grow in, give up all the luxuries he once so adored. The two might share adventures together, and in the evenings when Matthieu cried, Francis would chase away nightmares with sweets and with kisses and-

"Ah...Francis?

Thunderstruck, the young man looks up into the half-hopeful, half-apprehensive green eyes of Arthur Kirkland, who has a sling wrapped around his torso, a bundle with silver blond spikes sticking out from the blankets. Behind him is a nurse, her face professionally composed, but her own dark eyes registering suspicion and obvious condemnation. Francis blinks up at her and anxiously presses his son closer to himself, the fight or flight pulsing inside.

"Mr. Kirkland," begins the nurse whose name Francis can't remember but he decides then and there that he despises her anyway. "You rang, and these two have been in the waiting room for three hours now, so I assume you're ready to hand the boy over."

The finality she urges into her tone is like a resounding thud of a hammer pronouncing a death sentence.

~o*oOo*o~

* * *

The nurse comes in with a birth certificate, and Francis sullenly mumbled his child's name, which Arthur claps his hands at, though his smile is strained, clouding with doubt. Francis remains hunched over in the rocker, Matthieu still sleeping soundly. Hopefully there won't be any shouting soon to wake his poor, sleepy son up. If Arthur's brat starts to cry and wakes his son, Francis thinks he might pinch it.

"This one here is Alfred," Arthur says happily, pointing unnecessarily at the sleeping boy pressed against him. "Just got him this morning." A shaky, thin sort of laughter. "He's a ball of energy...I only got him to sleep an hour ago!" He gently ran a finger over the messy hair. "He's a bit of a handful so far, but really very sweet." His next words are insincere, reluctant. "Would you...would you care to hold him?" It sounds like a peace offering.

Francis says nothing, his eyes cooling considerably. _A 'bit' of a handful? You poor stupid, catterpillar-browed rat. You just wait. You'll be grateful to me that's it only just one you're taking, one you're_ collecting, _miserable and stupid thing. No one will ever love you, and you'll probably wind up throwing that little pig in the dumpster when you realize it cries and makes messes and screams. _He feels better, a spark of satisfaction. Matthieu had cried when he was born and who could blame him, but for the most part, he's a very quiet baby. One Francis can handle too easily.

Arthur harrumphs and looks away, fidgets.

"Yes...yes, I...well. I had the nursery finished a few weeks ago," he adds mildly but pointedly, reaching out to touch the little polar bear hood and Francis very nearly slaps him. "And I know it's a bit early, but I had the entire place baby-proofed. My colleague Elizabeta took a look at my place and called it a living...well, n-never mind that, it's very safe now."

Arthur is probably mentally killing himself, the way Francis is dragging him by the ears to the guillotine. He'd never once thought of making a residence child-safe, but there's some significant smugness at just how little Arthur knows. Pathetic.

The man coughs in the suffocating stillness that follows and places a few photos on the table between them, and for the first time Francis sees that the fingers are heavily bandaged, swollen like sausages. _That's right, he's a policeman, good god, what if he never comes home one night? What then_? "My friend Berwald happens to be a carpenter...and I have some years of woodshop under my belt as well, so we made two different cribs. One's a...rabbit..." Arthur trails off feebly, and Francis wonders just how such a timid scrap of a man could ever become a police officer. Damned passive agressiveness. Why can't he just take the hint and get lost?

More importantly, why can't Francis tell him to? The line of reasoning makes his mind go blank. Then, out of the fog, he hears Arthur speaking. "May I...may I hold him? Matthieu, I mean?"

No. No he may not, because he's already attached to the idea of having "twins." It'd be awful to rip his heart out after he learns that the baby will never be his. Because Francis can't let go. Because he doesn't even want Alfred and his little boy to touch.

But he betrays himself; to his horror, he very stiffly nods, even though he likely would have preferred a bath in bubbling oil. And Arthur all too quickly seizes the opportunity; like a hawk, he quickly leans forward and extracts Matthieu from a pair of limp arms and tugs him away.

This is hell.

Nine months of being treated as an outcast when he was used to being king, nine months of secrecy and lovelessness and loneliness mean nothing now, because Arthur is holding his babe correctly, supporting his head as if he'd done it a million times before, a small smile gracing his normally austere face as the baby's dark eyelashes begin to flutter against creamy skin.

"Hullo, little one," Arthur croons as Matthieu stares at Arthur, sucks thoughtfully on his hand. Much to Francis' chagrin, the baby doesn't seem in the least upset that he'd been taken out of the arms of his papa, the man who all but worshiped him. "You're a rather dashing young man, aren't you? I've been waiting to meet you for a long time." Smiling, he glances down at the bunting Alfred is snoozing in. "Someone else has been, too…though he's a bit busy right now. Say hello, Alfred, darling. Can you say hello?"

Obviously not, you stupid thing. Arthur pets the baby for a while before looking up, and Francis is unnerved by the glowing in Arthur's eyes. He doesn't like it, doesn't like it at all, and if he doesn't give Mathieu back _this instant_-

"How will you manage?" Francis says softly, through barely-moving lips. "You will have to go back to the force sooner or later."

"Mm? Oh, I've hired a nanny to take care of the two while I'm at work." Arthur pecks Alfred's head, then Matthew's. What sort of germs did this freak even have? "Which won't be so often now—I'm on paternity leave for a little while."

While Arthur nervously rambles on about papers and signatures and other legal tosh, Francis stares down at his shining shoes-they were bought for him, he'd never earned a thing in his life-and tries to ignore the photos resting on amongst the papers that need his signature should this monstrosity go through. Which it can't and won't, regardless of how nice the finished bedroom looks, with Winnie-the-Pooh wallpaper and a handcarved cradle that looks like a bear, waiting patiently for an occupant to come in and rest his head.

Why the hell should he give Matthieu up to the man with a frightening face, who had the impression that fish and chips made for fine dining? Francis never really gave much thought over whether or not single people should be allowed to adopt, but suddenly he knows he's opposed. Damn, damn, damned opposed. As a matter of fact, single parents shouldn't be allowed as a matter of principle. Well, perhaps he won't go that far, but _still._

A soundless gasp escapes him, though it's clogged with misery. Arthur can get another boy somewhere else. It'll be easy for him.

"Give..."

_Give me back my baby._ Francis needs to say it. But he can't, and it's scary, so terrifying he thinks his heart might break or stop or both.

"Francis?"

Gaunt and red-eyed, he looks up at Arthur, who is no longer smiling. All the color and vigor that had made his features blush and bright is gone, and it's replaced with a gray pallor. "I need to know. I need to know now," he rasps, standing up, and Francis shakily follows suit. How on Earth is the man carrying not one, but two children? "Will you be giving him to me?"

"Wh..." He might have said something else, but it doesn't register any meaning. Wild-eyed, he stares at Mathieu, knowing he can reach forward and take him, take him away from all this, but...

He can't.

"What would it matter if I didn't?" Francis asks softly, forcing the car to hold before it can take him away completely. "I-I can look after him. You already have one. I won't even be...even be..."

"You don't think you'll be hurting me?"

_Now_ Francis can understand why and how Arthur is a policeman. The man looks harsh, full of rule and pomp that makes Francis naturally want to buck and fight and throw him off. But he also looks inexplicably tired, and he is holding Francis' everything, so the teen forces himself to listen: "Son, I can't even begin to understand how much the boy means to you. But you've got your entire life ahead of you, and Matthew needs a good home, someone to take care of him-"

"He is my life," Francis rasps, staggering a step forward, eyes fixed on his son. "I need..."

"He needs safety," Arthur urges, his own arms tightening around Matthieu and Francis is ready to scream. "I can look after him, feed him. Francis, how much money do you think a newborn needs its first year? Then, there's everything else: there's health insurance in case he gets sick, there's someone to talk to him and hold him and make sure he gets fed-"

"I...I can..." The tears are filling up his eyes, pouring down his face like rain. "Non...I can..."

"Even if it's not me you give the baby to, you have to consider your own life," Arthur says quietly, his voice thick and sad. "If you try and deny yourself everything to give Matthew but a little, you'll wind up resenting him. And then you'll hate yourself for it, feel like a disgrace. How would you feel if you had to rely on your mother to take care of him, if you got fired and couldn't pay the bills? Would you spend hours in line for welfare, live in poverty, buy food stamps just so the baby can eat? I can look after him," Arthur begs. "_Please._ He and Alfred both. There's so much I still have to learn, but I've been dreaming and planning and hoping for so long, and I have loads of people coming out the door who want to help, so please..."

Francis stares at him, eyes as wild as a feral child's. And then, races out the door.

* * *

~o*oOo*o~

"My God, they look so much alike! You'd really think they were twins!"

A small gaggle of people has gathered outside the hospital, around a tiny doublex-stroller sort of thing. Looking tired but happy, Arthur leans back and watches as an attractive brunette woman coos and giggles over one of the babies, positively beaming.

"So cute, so cute! The jammies I got for them are going to look SO adorable! Arthur, you have to put them on when we get back."

"No, you have to put on the sailor suits first! I have to get a picture of that to show Mum!"

"Arnold, she's coming over later this weekend, can't the fashion show wait?" Arthur cringes when one of the babies starts fussing. "Oh, dear. Well, that'll be Alfred again-the boy spits up so much I have to change his clothes five or six times a day." With a good-natured sigh, he scoops out the baby and begins humming a lullaby as someone opens the car door. "Thank God we have the booster seats installed, those were a bloody nightmare-"

"No kidding! Ya had to be bi-lingual just to get through that shit."

Arthur hits a freckled, red-haired man with a scowl. "Not around the babies."

"Christ, you're already actin' like a parent! Now let's go home and have a toast to the little 'uns!"

"I love how my house is suddenly YOUR house," Arthur grumps, smiling nonetheless as he picks Matthieu out of the stroller and tucks him into a car seat, safe and sound. The woman next to him laughs.

"Trust me, until those two start sleeping nights, you're gonna beg to have us sleep over. Arthur, we're going to bring you dinner in shifts the next few nights as you get Al and Mattie settled in-"

"-and not just because your cooking tastes like shit..."

There was a loud slapping sound, and someone howls. "Hey! No violence in front of the babies!"

Well, what with Arthur and his brothers, it seems at least Matthieu can find some humor in his life in the form of the three stooges. Standing near the hospital entrance with his arms folded, Francis smiles faintly, his face a colorless shadow, a small smile below his large and dead eyes.

Later that night, his mother would ask what was "wrong" and he could not explain the trouble, because there was no trouble to begin with; everything was gone. In the span of a few hours, he'd gone from skepticism to having discovered the love of his life to nothingness. With any luck, he'd stumble around for awhile until eventually he'll be able to pick up from where he let off. Better or worse, it was hard to say. He'd left Matthieu a note, scrawled on the back of some silly hospital brochure, for the boy to read one day. He hopes Alfred's mother might have done the same for him-poor woman. Poor child. But with any luck, the boy will be just fine, alongside his brother he'll in all likelihood believe is his match in flesh and blood for some time, until Arthur at last cracks or he discovers the truth by an unhappy accident.

Francis leans against a brick wall and pulls out a cigarette as Arthur's car backs out of the parking lot, heads to the road with several other vehicles following quickly in procession. Considers the cancer stick, throws it away.

And both boys may wonder, may trouble, may lie awake at night and wonder if perhaps they were not good enough. What their "natural" parents might have looked like, if they thought of them, loved them still. Might feel disturbed for even questioning the love Arthur had better for his goddamn life shower on them.

Realize one day whilst they're walking home from a baseball game or from school that it doesn't really matter, that it never really did matter, actually. But in case Matthieu finds himself sleepless and wide-eyed amongst his pillows one dark night as his brother snores the next bed over, maybe Arthur will read to him, let him read it himself, and hopefully the boy will understand:

_Je t'aime._

He wipes at his face, still smiling aimlessly. He really better pull his act together; his mother wasn't the sort who asked questions, but she did get worried. He'd have to hug her good and tight tonight, trust that she could know the way she always did when one held the other, and let it be for time to heal.

_Goodbye. _

_My first love._

And Francis weeps.

* * *

_**And so my soul stops dead**_

_**Like a lonely, raw potato **_

_**Stuck in someone's throat. **_

_***Hits bongos* Feel like an emo or a beatnik right now...I'm afraid this didn't come out quite like I intended it to. :( Ah, well. **_

_**Originally, this story featured Arthur and his giving away Alfred to Tino and Berwald (love that couple). But then I thought about Matthew, easily one of my most beloved Hetalia characters...and how I don't really give him much love. T_T Writing about Alfred is the shizznit, but variety's the spice, right? It was also interesting to write in Francis' POV, too. **_

_**Speaking of which, felt bad for him...really have to take my hat off to people who make these sort of sacrifices for their children. It's love in it's most perfect form. **_

_**School has started again, so may be busy for a time. Nonetheless, will try and update when I can. Until next time, adieu, my dears, and please review. :)** _


End file.
